Farmer sentiment drifted lower in December as the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer dropped 9 points to a reading of 136. The decline was driven by producers’ weaker perspective on current conditions in U.S. agriculture and their farms, with the Index of Current Conditions falling 13 points to 100. Although the Current Conditions Index declined this month, it remains 24 points above its low in September and 5 points higher than in October. The Index of Future Expectations also fell 8 points to 153, remaining 59 points above its September low and 29 points higher than the October reading. This month’s survey was conducted from Dec. 2-6, 2024.

The Ag Economy Barometer sentiment index is calculated each month from 400 U.S. agricultural producers’ responses to a telephone survey. The full report is available at https://purdue.edu/agbarometer.

Podcast provided by Purdue University's Center for Commercial Agriculture. For more economic information and insights on the Ag Economy Barometer, visit us at http://purdue.edu/commercialag.

Slides and the transcript from the discussion can be found at https://purdue.ag/agcast181.

You can find the FULL video episode on our YouTube channel. Visit https://youtu.be/5L6ypx9J8J0 to subscribe and watch.